


Come Back The Way We Came

by capkooks



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 00:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18435299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capkooks/pseuds/capkooks
Summary: A few days after she left the school, Violet returns to Clementine.





	Come Back The Way We Came

**Author's Note:**

> Something I vent wrote after Kent Mudle broke my heart with the original EP 4 ending. I like to think that in that dark timeline, Violet would somehow end up back at the school because I'm weak and can't stand Clem and Vi being separated.
> 
> Title is from Push by Fog Lake.

When Violet finally wakes up, she thinks she’s dead. It’s a dark room, and she’s lying down as sweat matts her forehead, hands clammy from the thick blanket swallowing her body. She waits for her eyes to adjust, to find out where the hell she is, but as soon as she lifts her head, she lets out a hiss of pain.

“Don’t,” A voice says from across the room, startling Violet. “Ruby said you shouldn’t get up.”

“Is this a dream?” Violet asks. A legitimate question. The room starts to make sense to her - her own bed and the empty desk, the boarded-up window seeping in moonlight. When she finally looks up and around, she regrets saying anything.

It’s Clementine, of all people, sitting on the opposite bed, crutches by her side. She's staring right at her, and Violet suspects she's been like this for the past few hours. The thought of that feels uncomfortable to her.

“Or a cruel joke,” Violet adds, bitterly. She wishes she could disappear right about now, seeing the way Clem’s face slightly falls at that.

“Violet-”

“Whatever you have to say,” Violet says quickly, “I don’t wanna hear it.”

Clementine blinks at her, and the stare is piercing - her words, sharper. “What were you thinking?”

Something like shame burns at the pit of Violet’s stomach, and she swallows it down. Looks at anywhere but Clem and hopes to god she'll leave if she's unresponsive enough.

“Five days.” Clem continues anyways, “You were gone for five days. You didn’t bring any food or water with you, and god knows where you were. We couldn’t find you for five days, Violet, what were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t.” Violet says flatly, “I wasn’t thinking.” She fiddles with her hands, waiting to be reprimanded.

She doesn’t. Clem’s voice softens instead, “It was Aasim who found you. In the fishing shack. Is that where you were staying?”

Violet nods but stays quiet, shifting under the blankets under the intensity of Clem’s stare, waiting for a proper answer. Violet doesn’t give in. 

“You were out of it when we found you.” Clem continues, quieter this time, “Just curled up on the bed, half-there. He thought you were dead.”

“I thought I was,” Violet finally says. “I wish I was.”

Clem looks away then, feeling the weight of her words. And though Violet had meant it, and meant it to drive her away, she regrets it almost immediately. Something about the way Clem was looking at the window, as if she’d rather crawl her way out than hear this any longer. Violet can’t blame her.

“I was only there towards … the end,” Violet offers, to break the silence. “The first thing I did when I got there was scratch off that stupid heart. You know, the V+M?"

It's Clem's turn to stay silent. Violet notes her lack of response.

"I wrote that, a few days after Minnie said she loved me. Isn't that stupid?” Violet looks at Clem, at the side of her face that was still looking away, “ I didn’t even try to find food. I just wanted that heart gone.”

"Where were you, the other days?" Clem asks, softly. 

“I just...wandered for a while. But I always returned somehow. Funny how that works, huh? I try to leave, but it’s like I’m stuck here forever.”

“Would you do it again?” Clem asks, a little too quickly. She’s looking at her again.

“Why, are you gonna lock me in this room?”

“No, you can leave if you want,” Clem murmurs, “But Vi, I don't want you to.”

“I don’t care what you do with me." Violet says sharply, ignoring the way Clem calls her name, and opts to stare at the wall instead. Passive, nonchalant, like her heart wasn't beating a little faster.

At that, Violet wished for the ground to swallow her whole than hear any more of this. She's hyperaware of the way Clem keeps looking at her, unsaid words lingering, waiting to be spat out if something in the air broke and let it flood. Violet knows this, because she’s tip-toeing around it too.

“Where are the others?” Violet says.

“At dinner.”

“Why aren’t you with them?” She asks, knowing the answer already.

“In case you woke up. I wanted to stay…” Clem trails off. So you wouldn’t wake up alone.

“Really?” Violet scoffs, incredulous. “After all I did to you, you still want to see the girl who gave you that?” She points at Clem’s black eye, visibly dark and swollen even in this light.

Clem touches it self-consciously, as if she'd forgotten it'd been there at all. They sit in silence as if in a shared memory. They’d fought, back on the boat and the beach, had each other toppled over until the others had intervened. But Violet had landed a few punches and held Clem's throat by then, spitting words of fury, and had the same done to her by Clem's hands. They have the bruises to prove it.

Every now and then, the memory would replay in both their dreams. The way Violet had emerged on that beach alone, all burning rage, and aimed it at Clem. The way Louis had thrown Violet off of her, pleading, and the dreadful ride back to the school. Enveloped in that small carriage, Violet had felt small herself - feeling the weight of everyone's stares on her and at her gritty and bloodied hands. By then, Violet had already made up her mind and the next morning, she was gone.

“I don’t hate you,” Clem says, after a while, “If that’s what you’re asking. Even when you were on that boat, I could never hate you.”

Violet’s breath stutters for a second, but swallows it whole. “Yeah? Well, I still do.”

She didn’t need to look up to know that Clem was gaping at her. Violet could hear her exhale shakily, but it was hard to muster up any trust for her, had felt it die when Minerva had shoved her in that cell, telling her that Clem never cared about her.

They sit like that for a while, awkwardly. Violet, wishing to fall asleep and forget this conversation. And Clem, wanting to reach out but doing nothing, her hands in her lap. In this silence, they can hear the others outside - the laughing, the chattering, as if on an entirely different world than this suffocating one in Violet’s room.

With neither one yielding, Violet feels herself drift off slowly, finally. But Clem pulls her right back.

“I’m sorry,” Clem says, her voice breaking off at the end. And Violet, who had been staring at the wall next to her, doesn’t see the tears that have began welling up in Clem’s eyes but hears it instead.

When Violet faces her, something inside of her cracks a little at the sight of Clem like this. Her hands are shaking. Violet can only watch. “If I could take it back, I would. I mean it.”

“Do you really?” Violet challenges, but without any venom. It sounds shaky, instead.

“Yes,” Clem says hurriedly, “You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamt of you since you left. In most of them, you were dead. And it was always my fault.”

Violet’s own eyes start to sting, but she pushes it right back. Her arms become crossed instead, to hide the fact that they’re shaking but she suspects Clem’s already seen them, reading her like an open book.

“Maybe … maybe dying would be better than this.”

“No,” Clem says, louder than usual. “No, I’m glad. Even if you hate me now, I’ll take that over seeing you die any day. So please don’t say you’d rather die.”

At that, something in Violet breaks completely. But before she can say anything, Clem disrupts the silence with a pained hiss.

“What?” Violet asks quickly, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Clem says, already leaning down to feel her stump. Violet’s eyes follows her hands and the way it grasps for a leg that’s not there. “Just - it hurts sometimes, out of nowhere.”

Violet nods, feeling taken out of her element. The tension in the air that broke had fallen away now, clouded over as if it had never been there, though it was still lingering in Violet’s mind. She knows Clem feels the same, even though she was already getting ready to get up, crutches in hand. That's what they have in common, Violet thinks, the ability to appear stronger than they really were. It's why they were so drawn to each other, even now.

“I’m … gonna call Ruby, okay?” Clem says, "She said to tell her if you were awake."

At that, Clem gets up towards the open door. And seeing her, fumbling with the crutches, stump bloodied dry on the white cloth, it brings back the stinging in Violet’s eyes. The girl she had fallen in love with, all confidence and strength the first time she saw her, now bruised and broken and tired. But Violet was all the same.

“Clem?”

She stops and turns around, “Yeah?”

“I don’t hate you, either.” Violet says.

And Clem, knowing without the words, smiles at her. Violet smiles back, and it’s enough for now.


End file.
